Water is essential to human, animal and plant life. Humans require, on average, 2 to 5 liters of water a day to sustain life. Water is also needed for agriculture, to provide food for humans and animals.
Despite the great need for water, just 3% of the global water supply is fresh water that can be used by humans for consumption and for agriculture. Further, about 69% of the world's fresh water is locked in glaciers and ice caps and almost all of the rest is ground water. Lakes and rivers, rainwater, dew, fog, condensation and evaporation are additional sources of fresh water. Only about 0.3% of fresh water is contained in lakes and rivers, which supplies most of the water humans use.
Transporting fresh water from lakes and rivers to where water is needed typically involves the installation of piping and the use of pumps, or other water distribution methods, all of which require energy and incur costs.
In desert regions, fresh water is scarce. The average amount of precipitation is less than 25 centimeters a year and evaporation exceeds precipitation. At present, approximately one-sixth of the land on earth is desert and desertification of marginal rangeland or cropland through extended drought, overgrazing or climate change continues at a rate of several hundred thousand square kilometers to millions of square kilometers per year. Yet about half of the deserts of the world get enough rainfall to sustain at least light livestock grazing or agriculture which if managed suitably could significantly increase the world's food supply.
It would be desirable to collect water more proximate to where water is needed so as to reduce energy consumption and costs associated with transporting water and it would also be desirable to increase the water supply in areas where fresh water is scarce. Accordingly, there remains a need for improvements in the art.